


Unintentional Dimensional Tearing

by betheflame



Series: Stony Bingo 2019 [8]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cap_Ironman Bingo 2019, M/M, Minor Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Multiverse, Steve Rogers Explains It All
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:41:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22218718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betheflame/pseuds/betheflame
Summary: “No,” Tony swore. “Not the fuck again.”“What-” Steve started from his place on the couch and then rolled his eyes in frustration.There, standing in the middle of the Pym Platform, was him.“Judging by the uniform, we’re looking at pre-Chitauri,” Steve said as Tony called out a set of instructions to Jarvis.“But not from our timeline,” Bucky replied from his space in the lab.“Nah,” Steve rubbed his chin and hoisted himself off the couch.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Stony Bingo 2019 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1454416
Comments: 17
Kudos: 289
Collections: Captain America/Iron Man Bingo, Dimensional travel tony fica





	Unintentional Dimensional Tearing

**Author's Note:**

> My FINAL fill for Stony Bingo 2019 - This one is N1 - a comic of two Caps fighting each other. So, multiverse it is!
> 
> This one goes out to all of my Discord favorites who have made this deep dive into Stony fandom so much fun.

“No,” Tony swore. “Not the fuck again.”

“What-” Steve started from his place on the couch and then rolled his eyes in frustration.

There, standing in the middle of the Pym Platform, was him.

“Judging by the uniform, we’re looking at pre-Chitauri,” Steve said as Tony called out a set of instructions to Jarvis.

“But not from our timeline,” Bucky replied from his space in the lab.

“Nah,” Steve rubbed his chin and hoisted himself off the couch.

“This is getting old, Stevie,” Bucky replied and went back to working on the robot that he was learning how to build. Steve fought a quick grin - that his husband was teaching his best friend how to do robotics so that Bucky’s sci-fi nerdiness could come back in full force was enough to make Steve want to blow Tony in gratitude about every ten minutes.

Which wasn’t really that much of a difference from normal activities - Steve really loved putting his lack of gag reflex to work.

“Cap,” Tony called and Steve’s head flipped up. Oh, not me.

“Where am I?” Captain Timeline Jumper stated. Oh, that’s my tone when I’m scared.

“You’re in the Avengers Compound in New York. This is a good time to tell you that the multiverse you’ve been ignoring me and Bruce about is real,” Tony replied calmly, “because you’re also in 2020. I’m guessing you’ve come from 2012?”

“Who is-”

“Oh, fuck,” Bucky said. “Didn’t think of that.” He turned to address the completely white-faced man in the middle of the room. “Hi, I’m Bucky. Yes, your Bucky.” He looked at Tony. “2012, you say?”

Tony nodded and looked at the man in the middle of the room. “March? 2012?”

The man nodded and then looked at Steve. “What was your first question when you woke up?”

“Where the living fuck am I and why am I not cold anymore?” Steve replied quickly, and Cap visibly relaxed. Any of me after 1948 ask me the same question. I gotta remember to tell Tony that for the data.

“Cap,” Tony interrupted, and Steve saw him quietly take his wedding ring off. Steve followed suit. “If we remember correctly, that suit really chaffed your ass, so do you wanna come down here and grab a change of clothes while we explain?”

Cap’s head whipped towards Steve, who bit back a smile and nodded. “We trust him here. A lot. Plus, his suits are way better than SHIELD’s.”

“Jesus, I’d hope so,” Tony interrupted. “SHIELD’s do nothing for your ass. Jarvis, can you-”

“I’ll go,” Bucky interrupted. “You guys need to explain shit to him anyway and I’ve got a date with Nat and Sam and she won’t put out if I smell like the shop.” Bucky caught the look on Cap’s face and huffed. “I shouldn’ta said that.”

“No,” Tony said cheerily, “but we’ll fix it.”

It didn’t take long for Bucky to return to the workshop with a pair of Steve’s sweatpants and a t-shirt before making his exit again. In the meantime, Tony and Steve had talked Cap off of the platform and had DUM-E fetch a bottle of water and a protein drink from the fridge. Steve, anticipating his own body, had ordered a few dishes from Pio Pio. He hadn’t discovered Brazailian food until 2013, so he was always trying to give the Other Cap’s a jump on their dietary explorations.

Ever since Thor sliced Thanos in half and Carol had dealt with the stones back in 2017, their timeline had stabilized. Which is why it was odd when, in the summer of 2018, their first visitor had arrived.

_“Tony, what is this?” Steve pinched his nose at the contraption before him._

_“It’s your wedding present!”_

_“It’s my what now?”_

_Tony bounced on the balls of his feet, the way he always did when he was excited about giving Steve something extravagant. “Your wedding gift.”_

_“Anthony,” Steve’s voice was full of both exasperation and fondness, a combination frequently deployed by those who love Tony. “You already got me a wedding gift.”_

_Tony waved his hand in the air. “The car came from the joint checking because you insisted like someone who survived the Depression.”_

_“I did survive the Depression.”_

_“This is just a silly thing from me,” Tony finished, ignoring Steve._

_“Fine, what is it?”_

_“An invisible time travel machine.”_

_Steve just blinked and let Tony continue. It was better that way._

_“So, Strange explained to me that I can’t send you on adventures in our time line now that’s stabilized, and if you went to the others where Thanos was still a threat, there are some risks you couldn’t come back. But, you talk all the time about watching art masters paint or ancient wonders of the world shit, so this way you can go to anywhere in our timeline and observe invisibly. You can’t change anything, no one will see you, but you can go wherever.”_

_Steve shook his head in wonder. Never in a million years did he dream that would be something he could do - leave it to his fiance to make his unspoken wishes come true._

The problem was that on Steve’s 7th adventure, he accidentally crossed into another timeline where Thanos was still being an inter-terrestrial dick. Steve noped the hell out of there as fast as he could, but he tore something and now sometimes visitors kinda… show up.

The first was a Tony from some universe in which he and Steve were cowboys. Then a Nat who was married to Bruce, then a Bruce who had never been the Hulk and was their timeline’s Iron Man after Tony broke his back, and then a Bucky who had never fallen from the train and he was so happy and settled that Steve had to leave the compound in grief of what could have been. And then they just kept coming.

They had no idea what to do with the visitors at first, so they checked with Strange, who made one of his faces and vanished before Tony could ask follow-up questions. Two weeks later (and after the visit from a super confused and very pregnant Natasha Banner), Strange had returned to let them know that the tears would probably only last 36-72 hours and then the person would be returned to their original timeline.

During that time, they’d basically have to stay within a mile of the platform, and they’d remember the whole experience when they returned - only having missed four minutes in their time.

Today’s 2012 Edition of Captain America was the 17th Steve to come through the tear and a lot of them had broken his heart. This one seemed to be one of those - the way he looked at Tony, the way he clenched his fists at Jarvis’ voice…

“Tony,” Steve said carefully, intentionally not using a pet name. “Can you go get us some milkshakes?”

Tony opened his mouth to clearly argue that they could just use the milkshake machine in Bucky’s kitchen, but then he caught Steve’s eye and nodded. “Sure, Oh Captain, My Captain. Other Cap, you had cookies ‘n cream yet?”

“I like chocolate marshmallow from Carvel the best,” the man rasped out, clearly still in shock.

“Oh, he’s after the Wildwood errand,” Tony said. “Got it. Chocolate marshmallow milkshake coming right up.”

Tony took his leave - not without a long glance at his Steve - and the two Caps were alone.

And Steve got a right hook to the jaw.

The super soldier reflexes took over faster than his brain registered what was happening and soon the pair were wrestling all over the workshop. In the back of Steve’s mind, he registered that Jarvis was having the bots move things out of their way, which was a protocol put in place after a version of him who worked for Hydra had burst through a tear a few months back.

Talk about fucking nightmares.

“You must be brainwashed,” Cap hissed. “I read Stark’s file, I talked to Nat, he’s a mouth with an ego attached. I have to get you to SHIELD.”

“Oh, you have got to be shitting me,” Steve huffed. “Okay, Spangles, listen closely.” He escaped from Cap’s grip and found a soldering iron on an adjacent workbench and shoved it directly into Cap’s stomach. This shocked the other man enough that Steve could fireman carry him to one of the office chairs, where DUM-E and U were already waiting with vibranium enforced ropes and a gag for Cap’s mouth.

This wasn’t anyone’s first rodeo.

“Now,” Steve breathed out, “let’s get a few things straight. One, I know your timeline. It looks like you and I lived the same one so far, but I split off in 2012, but later in the year than you are. I remember what you’re feeling and what’s happening. It’s April where you are, right?”

Steve was rewarded with silence and a glare.

“Right, April. So you haven’t met the Chitauri yet and you haven’t seen Tony fly a nuclear bomb into a wormhole in the sky and you haven’t tasted shawarma yet. Trust me that these are all life changing events for us. In my timeline, I chose to trust Tony and get to know him better. In other timelines that have sprung out from ours, we chose not to trust him and things got really, really ugly.”

Steve sighed and decided to go for the secret emotions with this Steve.

“Listen, when I say I’m you, I mean it. I know about Buck and the tent and that night in London after Azzano with Peg. I know all of that. And trust me,” Steve smirked, “I remember all of that fondly. But you and I both know the guy who downed that plane and the guy who’s trying to figure out what iTunes is are two different people.

“I remember being so fucking scared that first year. Why the hell was everything so bright? Why was everyone so selfish? How did we get so many different kinds of Coke? I wondered if I even wanted to live in this world and if we’re on the same timeline… then the night out on Long Island wasn’t too long ago, was it?”

Steve saw the raw pain flash through his own eyes.

“The thing is, pal,” Steve said softly, “that we’re not alone. Nat is actually really great to talk to, just like Becca was. Clint’s an idiot, but no more than Dum-Dum. Thor is surprisingly wise and really helpful with deflecting away from us when we’re embarrassed we missed something. Bruce is just the best, even if I can’t understand what he says half the time. And then… I need you to trust me, but you gotta tell Tony about Long Island. He’ll give you a phone with Jarvis in it and everything will get better from there. I promise.”

The look on Cap’s face told Steve that his advice wasn’t going over great, but Steve had one more thing to say before he’d take the gag off.

“In my timeline, I did that. I talked to Tony. And then I fell in love with Tony. And when Bucky showed back up as a brainwashed assassin who’d been kidnapped for 70ish years? Tony helped me find him. He found the best brain experts in the world - pal, you are not gonna believe Wakanda when you go - and now Buck’s free. You think being in love with Buck was great when we were boys? Wait until you see him being in love with people who are even better for him than we were, and us being in love with a man who fits our new life so well it’s scary some days.”

Steve fished his wedding ring out of his pocket. “Now, you happened to show up on our 6th anniversary, and we were gonna pizza and cheeseburgers and watch a movie. You’re welcome to join us - I’ll untie you and you can get out of that godawful uniform - or you can stay down here. We don’t know exactly when you’ll get back to your timeline, but Bruce made some medicine that usually helps you guys sleep for most of your time here if you want to be left alone.”

Steve carefully pulled the gag out of Cap’s mouth.

“What number am I?”

Steve blinked. “Of Caps specifically? You’re our 17th. Other Avengers total? I can’t remember - Jarvis?”

“Captain, you are the 78th Avenger to come through a timeline tear in the last eighteen months,” Jarvis replied crisply.

“Do we get used to Jarvis?” Cap asked Steve and Steve laughed.

“Yeah, but we’re still not quite used to how fast food can arrive once Tony orders it.”

“Speaking of, Captain Stark-Rogers,” Jarvis interrupted and Steve saw Cap’s eyes go wide. “Pio Pio’s delivery has arrived. Shall I send it to the workshop?”

“Yes,” Steve said, “and Tony can come back down when he’s back, too.”

“The violence has ceased?”

Steve looked carefully at his counterpart, who nodded. “Yes, J, the violence has ceased.”

“Oh, good, because Sergeant Barnes grabbed the Ferragamo sweatpants and we have a terrible time getting blood out of them,” the AI replied.

* * *

“I’m glad he was one of the longer ones,” Steve said several days later as he and Tony watched television. “I think he may change his timeline.”

“Even just the intel that Zemo is a bad dude and Thanos needs decapitated is more than the last Cap let us give him,” Tony replied idly.

“You know what I realized, though?”

“Hmm?”

“He marks the 79th timeline we’re aware of, including ours,” Steve said, smiling softly as he took his husband’s hand. “And in all of them, we choose each other or the world falls apart.”

“That’s a lot of fucking pressure,” Tony replied, smiling and rearranging himself into a cuddle position.

“Remember the pregnant Tony?”

“Oh god, and all that secondary gender nonsense,” Tony scoffed. “I need brain bleach.”

“Oh, I dunno,” Steve kissed Tony’s hair. “You geniuses haven’t figured out a better way for you and I to have a baby. Maybe it’s not so terrible.”

Tony froze. “You want a baby?” They’d talked about this on and off since Thanos’ death, but never so directly.

“I want you,” Steve said quickly, “and the idea of being a dad with you is a really fun one, that’s all.”

Tony looked up at Steve and smirked. “Then you get to rearrange your reproductive organs and I’ll let Pepper know she’s off the hook for the surrogacy she offered.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Fine, Tony, I’ll drop it.”

“I mean, you have a great pair of tits already-”

“Watch the movie, Stark,” Steve laughed.

“I love you,” Tony whispered instead and twisted in Steve’s embrace.

“Yeah, yeah, Shellhead,” Steve smiled into the kiss. “In this timeline anyway.”

“Oh, no, Cap,” Tony corrected. “I love you in all of them. I’m just only brave enough to say it in some of them.”

“Same, Shellhead. Same.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/betheflame1) or [Tumblr](http://betheflame.tumblr.com) for more on these yahoos. You can also submit prompts and cajole me into writing faster - it usually works. If you're on Discord, I'm definitely there, too, and probably hanging in the [Stony](https://discord.gg/z5WSqbS) or [Stuckony](https://discord.gg/jtXcc3n) servers.


End file.
